Best San Francisco Film Schools: Ratings of Bay Area Film Schools

San Francisco film schools provide access to one of America’s best cities & states. Discover the best Bay Area film colleges with expert ratings & reviews.

San Francisco is the cleaner, prettier and more relaxed alternative to the Californian city of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is known for its hectic nature, its crowds, and its fast-paced lifestyle.

San Francisco, while still a large metropolis in the state of California, is nevertheless quite content to take a more relaxed view of the world. Students who are intimidated by the chaos of Los Angeles but still want to maintain proximity to the wealth of opportunity provided by Hollywood should consider San Francisco as a viable alternative.

Why Attend a San Francisco Film School?

San Francisco is California at its finest. It, too, boasts a wealth of film schools that provide students with the best possible education and unlimited resources for starting their filmmaking careers off on the best foot possible. The filmmaking industry is a tough business to break into.

Most filmmakers agree that this is a business of contacts rather than impressive resumes.

Forming lasting relationships with individuals who are already secured in the filmmaking industry is often your best bet for landing a job after graduation. Still, filmmakers don’t discount the significance of achieving a degree in film production.

Not only does such a degree prove to your potential employers that you are serious about your craft, it will also teach you valuable information about the business and about yourself that will continue to aid you as you begin your career as a filmmaker.

If an LA film school doesn’t offer the right culture for you, than the film schools of San Francisco are all uniquely suited to help you achieve these goals. With high quality education, high-technological advancements and resources, knowledgeable and experienced instructors with years of history in the film industry, and a tantalizing proximity to the movie making hub of the United States, San Francisco is all a budding film artist could want in a film school location and much, much more.

Top Bay Area Film Schools

There are many schools to choose from in the San Francisco area.

Perhaps one of the best film schools in San Francisco is the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking. This school advertises its method of instruction as “full contact filmmaking.” Students rarely spend time attending lectures and hearing professors drone on about film theory or film technicalities.

Instead, students jump right into the film production scene. They practice writing screenplays, filming critical scenes, coaching actors and actresses as they learn from directors, editing the final product, mixing the sound, and producing a finished film.

Best Way to Learn Filmmaking

The best way to learn, according to the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking, is by hands on experience under the direction of knowledgeable leaders in the filmmaking industry. Students won’t find themselves working on films that will never see production.

In fact, all the students who work on the feature films produced by the SFSDF will see their names listed in the final credits. Before the student even graduates, he or she gains real-time experience working on the set of a full-length feature film production.

Students also take film acting classes led by world-renowned actors and actresses with years of experience in the film industry. Students engage in round table discussions with notable screenwriters to discuss the ins and outs of the perfect movie script. Instead of reading about screenwriting theory in textbooks, students will practice writing their own screenplays and will receive crucial feedback from successful screenwriters.

The students at SFSDF also produce their own short films. Students form groups of talented individuals and see the production of a film through from beginning to end. Many of the students at SFSDF have even won awards for their short films.

This is only one of the many spectacular film schools that San Francisco has to offer!